Jared's about to do a line of coke off a stripper's ass when his cell phone buzzes in his pocket. It's playing some song he's never even heard before, and when he pulls it out it says Unknown Caller. He flips it open and yells, "How'd you get this number, asshole?"

"Uh . . . Jared?"

"Look, I don't give out this number," Jared says, "so whoever this is—"

"Jared," the guy on the other end says insistently. The voice is familiar. Jared's this close to figuring out who it is when the guy continues, "Dude, it's Jensen."

Jared jerks his hand off the stripper's breast. "Jensen? Holy shit, hi! Sorry, I, uh—"

Jensen laughs. "It's cool. Long time, no see, man. Listen, I just read about your nomination and wanted to say congrats. Golden Globes, that's awesome."

"Yeah," Jared says, turning away from the stripper—Charlie? Candi? He's not sure.—and pushing his hair off his forehead. "Pretty crazy, huh?"

"No shit." Jensen's quiet for a second. "Hey, how you doing out there? You still loving it?"

"Yeah, man. It's the life. What are you up to right now?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's like, past midnight there, right? It's New Year's Eve, dude! Please tell me you're on a bed with a set of twins and a bottle of Andre right now."

Jensen laughs a little. "Yeah, not so much."

"What do you mean?" Jared yells into the phone. "Don't they let you party on Broadway?"

There's a pause. "Yeah. Sure they do. Hey, listen, I've got to go. You just— Good luck with everything, man."

"Hey, you too!" Jared says. "Call me if you're ever back in L.A., okay?"

"Sure," Jensen says. "I'll do that." There's another pause like maybe he's going to say something else, but then he just says, "See ya," and hangs up.

"Huh," Jared says to nobody in particular. "That was weird." He stuffs the phone back in his pocket and turns back to the stripper. Christie, he's pretty sure it's Christie. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"

She giggles and tips her ass up towards his face.

"Oh yeah, that's right." He bends over and snorts the line all the way up.

*

Jared's on a couch. It's made of this soft red leather and he's sinking all the way into it, like the only thing that's going to be left to see in a minute are his feet. He lets his head roll back and then forward again, and opens his eyes. Bad idea: he goes blind. He can't tell if it's the lights that are too bright, or if it's Chad's suit, sparkly gold to match his bling.

"I'm a one-man pussy patrol, bitch!" Chad says. "Check this shit out!" He's on the couch across from Jared, trying to booty dance with two strippers at once.

Jared rolls his eyes. He'd switched his drug of choice to gin earlier—hit that mellow quicker—but now he's too mellow. He needs more gin. The bar is far away though, like at least ten feet, and the couch is too good to leave.

A stripper Jared has never seen before walks down the line between Chad's couch and Jared's. "I wanna tap that ass, baby!" Chad yells, extracting a hand from between the strippers on the couch to slap the new girl on the butt.

"Just for that, I think I'm going to visit this other guy instead," she says, straddling Jared's lap. "Are you going to treat me like your buddy did?"

Jared gives her a long look. She's a Latina, all spilling black hair and rippling copper skin, pouty lips quirked up at one side. Hot as hell, no denying that, but for no reason he could possibly explain he says, "Nah. I just want a drink."

She lifts an eyebrow, stares at him and laughs after a moment, golden chuckling laughter. "Yeah," she says. "I guess you do. You know what? I've got something better. I'm going to give you a glimpse."

She produces a bright-blue drink from somewhere—possibly her g-string.

"What did you say this was called? A Glimpse?" he says, taking the glass from her and sniffing it. It smells like Curacao and maybe coconut rum. "What's in it?"

She smiles cryptically. "You'll just have to find out for yourself, won't you?"

"I guess I will." He tips the glass towards her, then swallows it all the way down.

*

Jared wakes up with something warm and slightly wet pressing against his mouth. He's hung-over as fuck, but eventually he realizes that the thing on his lips is someone else's mouth. Whatever, Jared can roll with that. He opens his mouth and whoever it is slides her tongue in, licking softly, and cups Jared's jaw with her hand. Even through the hangover it's a damned good kiss, and it takes Jared way longer than it should to notice that the weird sandpaper feeling against his face is stubble, and the pressure on his hip is a dick.

"Gyah," Jared says into whoever's mouth it is, scrambling backwards and opening his eyes as he goes. "What the hell is— Jensen?"

Jensen gives him a confused look. He's pretty much the same as Jared remembers: a little older, for sure, with graying temples and he's definitely put on a little weight since Jared last saw him. His voice is the same as Jared remembers, though, when he says, "Hey, Jared. You okay?"

Jared stares openly at him. Jensen's in bed with him, and neither of them is wearing a shirt. Jared might have the world's biggest hangover, but it doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out what happened here. How it happened, though? That's a good question. "Jensen, hey," Jared says, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "I thought you were in New York. How'd you end up out here?"

"Huh?" Jensen says, then he groans. "Dude, I knew I shouldn't have let you drink your own bottle of champagne last night, New Year's or no New Year's. Vancouver? Is not equal to New York. Now come on, we've got like t-minus-two minutes before Annie and Josh wake up, so if we're going to have sex we've got to do it right now."

"If we're what?" Jared says, trying to lunge out of the way as Jensen grabs his shoulder.

There's some kind of banging and thumping in the hallway; Jensen sighs and slumps his head over. "Too late," he says against Jared's chest.

"Too late for what?" Jared says, and then he screams: a dog, a little girl and an even littler boy are making straight for the bed.

"Daddy! Papa!" the little girl yells, jumping on top of the comforter.

"Hey, baby girl," Jensen says. The little boy is still standing by the baseboard next to the dog; Jensen reaches down and scoops him up, patting the dog's head as he goes. "How's Josh doing this morning?"

The kid squeals and grins at Jensen as he tickles his stomach, and Jared can't stop staring. "You've got kids?" he says incredulously, firmly backed against the headboard.

Jensen sighs heavily. "Dude, they're your kids too."

"They're my what?"

Jensen quirks an eyebrow at him. "Kids? Spawn?"

"Kids." Jared pretty much falls off the bed in his haste to get out of there. "I'm just, uh. I have to go somewhere. Right now."

He's already halfway down the hallway before he realizes: he actually is in Vancouver. He's in his old house there, the one he bought when Supernatural got picked up for a third season. He must have taken something fucking crazy last night, because how the hell else he could have gotten to Vancouver in the middle of the night, woken up in bed with Jensen and a couple of kids and—gross, now it sounds like he's Michael Jackson—anyway, lots of drugs, crazy ones. Probably Welling and Rosenbaum were involved. He snatches up the first jacket he sees and shoves his feet into the sneakers he finds by the door; at least he's already wearing sweatpants. Something flashes in the corner of his eye as he grabs a set of car keys from the countertop: he's got a bright gold band on his left ring finger, and isn't that just the funniest part of this whole thing? He tries to pull it off, but it sticks on his knuckle, and he can hear Jensen yelling from somewhere behind him: "Jared? Where are you going?" He'll get the ring off later. Right now he's out the door, unlocking the mini-van and zooming down the street.

It's been seven years since he sold this house, and the fact that Jensen bought it and is raising kids in it, that's really freaky, but anyway, he still knows exactly how to get to Rosenbaum's place. He makes it there in fifteen minutes flat, and in those fifteen minutes he's managed to get himself all the way convinced that Rosey's going to throw the door open and Welling will be passed out on the couch and Rosey will yell, "April Fool's!" and Jared will remind him that it's New Year's Day, bitch, not the first of April; and Rosey will tell him all about chartering that private jet in the middle of the night and those stewardesses, man, their legs were up to there.

So when Jared knocks and a fifty-year-old woman and her pet dachshund open the door and she says she hasn't heard of anyone named Rosenbaum in her life, unless wait, was he the guy who moved out nine years ago? Jared starts to get a little freaked out.

He spends a couple hours driving in one big loop through downtown and taking deep, calming breaths, trying to remember how to focus his qi or whatever that sex therapist he fucked three years ago liked to talk about, and he thinks maybe it's working, except for then he sees a woman with sleek brown hair and a business suit walking down the street outside one of the office buildings and he doesn't know how he knows it but he knows: it's the hooker from last night, the one that gave him that drink.

Jared slows the minivan down next to her and says, "Hey! You, I know you."

She lowers her sunglasses over her nose to take a better look at him. "Jared! It's fabulous to see you here." She speaks with a snooty British accent that Jared doesn't believe is real for a second.

"What the hell did you do to me?" Jared yells through the window.

She pauses, shifting her weight from one stiletto heel to the other. She's got amazing legs, he'll give her that. "It's a called a Glimpse," she says.

"So what, it's some kind of hallucinogenic drug thing that'll wear off in a few hours and then everything will be fine. Right? Right?"

She laughs. It sounds a little bit like bells. "Oh, relax, darling. You did a good thing last night, not grabbing my ass. I thought one good turn deserved another."

"You call this a good turn?" Jared yells. "Kidnapping me in the middle of the night and taking me to another country and bringing in Jensen and some random kids—"

She looks at him curiously. "Is that what you think this is?"

Jared throws the car in park, gets out and walks up to her. "I don't have a damned clue what I think this is, so you'd better start making some sense right now."

She stares back at him, looking not at all intimidated. "I tell you what," she says slowly. "Come inside with me and I'll explain everything and it'll all be okay." She gestures toward the building behind her—a ritzy apartment building not unlike Jared's.

"You promise?" Jared says warily.

"Of course I do." She goes in through the door, holding it open for him. He only gets three steps into the lobby before two massive security guards are approaching him.

"What the hell?" he says.

"I'm terribly sorry, love, but these are the rules," she says loftily. "I'm afraid I won't be seeing you. And I don't recommend trying to fight these nice gentlemen. You'll lose."

The guards each take one of his arms and start frog-marching him back toward the door. "What the hell?" he yells at her. "I'm supposed to be in L.A. right now! I've got a lot of important things to do!"

"Of course you do," she says, stepping into an open elevator. "But I really think you'd be better off going right back to your house."

"No, fuck that!" Jared says. "I'm going straight to the airport and getting on a plane back to Los Angeles."

"For one, I don't think that would be a very good idea, since you'll find that things aren't exactly the same there as you're used to. And for two, just how are you planning on doing it without this?" She holds up brown leather wallet.

Jared checks his pockets for the wallet that'd been there before. "Oh, you bitch!"

"No need to be nasty, now," she says pleasantly. "Happy New Year's! And Jared? Do try to enjoy this."

The elevator doors close in front of her and the guards throw Jared out of the building before he manages to finish sputtering.

*

Jared drives back toward the house. He doesn't really know where else to go at this point. He'll just borrow some money off Jensen and pay him back once he's got his extra credit cards in L.A.; and shit, he doesn't have a photo ID, but he'll figure something out. He pulls onto the street and slows down near the driveway and just totally fucking gapes, because there's Chad running down the sidewalk toward his car. "Chad, you fucker!" Jared says. "What the hell is this for? Is it payback for when I told Kenzie you got crabs for the fifth time, because I swear—"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Chad says confusedly. "Do you have any idea how much Jensen's been worrying about you? He said you'd been acting kind of weird this morning, and then you ran out when last night you said you were going to take the kids to the ice skating rink and you've been gone for hours—"

"You know, the joke stopped being funny about eight hours ago, man," Jared says.

"Um, yeah," Chad says. "It really did. Look, you know what? Just get in there and let Jensen know you're all right so he can stop freaking out already."

It's all one big practical joke, Jared tells himself. It's all one big practical joke, and it stays that way right up until the second he goes back into the house and Jensen is there with the two little kids all red-eyed and puffy-faced, and Jensen gloms onto him and curls his fingers in Jared's jacket and says, "Where the fuck have you been?" and, "You know what, never mind, you're back, everything's okay, except for how Annie wouldn't stop crying for hours because she thought you hated her," and then it pretty much stops being a joke at all. Because Jensen's a fucking awesome actor, Jared knows that, but he's not this good. Nobody is. He doesn't have a damned clue what that means, other than that asking Jensen to spot him a couple hundred bucks to fly back to L.A. right now is probably not the best call. That's about all he knows.

It occurs to him somewhere around the time he's wiping Annie's snot off his sweatpants leg that the whole thing started with him waking up here; when he goes to bed, he'll probably wake back up in his own bed with three hookers fawning over him and this whole drug-induced hallucination or whatever the hell it is will be over and everything will be okay again. He feels a lot better about the whole thing after that. He's a lot better at dealing with Jensen and Josh falling asleep on the couch that afternoon with The Little Mermaid going in the background, and Annie making him paint watercolors with her when he thinks of it as something that will be over in the morning.

So he gets through the afternoon. They eat chicken and rice for dinner. Josh seems to think it's hilarious to throw rice at Jensen's head, which Jared completely agrees with right up until Jensen eyes him and says, "No way, dude, it's so your turn to take care of that." Jared's not quite so happy with the whole thing then, because seriously, if he's going to have a drug-induced hallucination, the rice should totally clean itself up.

Jensen takes care of putting the kids to sleep afterwards. He comes back into the T.V. room—which at least has a decent-sized screen, at least Jared's hallucination accounted for that—and they watch the Seahawks get clobbered and that's all pretty normal, anyway: watching a game with Jensen on the couch beside him. They used to do this all the time, back when Supernatural was still going.

The game ends and Jensen curls his hand around Jared's neck and says, "Hey, you ready to go to bed?"

With effort, Jared doesn't flinch out of the touch. "Um, yeah. Sure," he says. Somehow it's not until Jensen removes his hand and stands up that Jared notices the matching gold band on Jensen's left ring finger—and that's just one more thing on the very long list of things that isn't worth freaking out about, because this is all going to be over in the morning, anyway.

In the bedroom Jensen strips down to his boxers and gets in bed. "You mind getting the light?" he says.

"Um, sure." Jared flips the switch. The lamp on Jensen's side of the bed is still on, though. Jared considers leaving all of his clothes on—he could be cold or something—but he's slept in the same bed as Jensen before; it's not that weird. He takes his jeans off and, after some consideration, his shirt. It's really not that weird. He slides under the covers and Jensen shifts up next to him and tries to kiss him and okay, that's weird, and who tries to have sex with the lights on, anyway?

"I'm, uh. I'm really tired?" Jared offers.

"Really?" Jensen says, but he backs off. He's still looking at Jared, though. Even in the darkness, Jared's pretty sure he looks disappointed. "Okay. Good night, then," he says finally, rolling over to the other side of the bed and turning off the light.

"Good night," Jared says, lying flat on his back to stare at the ceiling. Everything's going to be okay in the morning; he keeps telling himself that. It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

*

Jared wakes up with a heavy arm flung across his chest and legs tangled up with his own that are far too hairy to belong to any hooker he'd pick up. He opens an eye cautiously, then lets out a huge sigh. It's still Jensen. He's still here.

He tries to disentangle himself without waking Jensen up, but it's no good: Jensen's grip tightens over his chest. "Five more minutes," Jensen mumbles against Jared's shoulder.

"Um," Jared says. "I really have to pee." He wriggles out from under Jensen's arm. Jensen makes a sleepy sort of complaining noise and burrows against the pillow Jared's head was just on. Jared goes into the bathroom and hyperventilates very quietly with his back against the door. He brushes his teeth slowly and splashes cold water on his face and he's still in Vancouver when he's done. He opens the door.

"You take long enough?" Jensen says, pushing past him into the bathroom. He's completely naked, and Jared's pretty sure his jaw is actually dropping. He swallows hard. Jensen picks up his toothbrush, and catches Jared staring. "You see something you like?" Jensen grins and shakes his ass a little. "Not that I'm opposed to you being hot for me or anything, but you do remember it's your morning to get the kids to school, right?"

That's enough to distract Jared from the naked. "My turn to get the kids to school?" he asks.

"It's a good thing you're really fucking good in bed," Jensen sighs, "because this whole clueless shtick? It's getting old."

"Could I maybe get some help with it?" Jared tries.

"Where by 'it' you mean 'the kids'?" Jensen says through a mouthful of toothpaste. "Dude, we've had them for four years. I think you know how to change a dirty diaper."

"Oh my God," Jared says weakly.

Jensen runs water in the sink and squirts shaving cream into his hand. "Look, I know Josh's recurring diarrhea isn't exactly the most awesome thing to deal with first thing in the morning, but I've got to be at school in forty-five minutes, so you're on your own today, kiddo."

Jared keeps staring at him.

Jensen waves a hand in front of his face. "Staff meetings all day long, is this ringing a bell? Anyone? Bueller?"

"Sure?" Jared says.

"Great," Jensen says. "You'd better get going, you know Mrs. Hammond's going to get pissed if Annie keeps showing up late. What are you waiting for?" He gets in the shower. It's an opaque glass door, and Jared can still see pretty much everything.

Jared says, "Right, going!" and turns away quickly so he won't keep staring. He goes into the hall and finds the dog whining low in its throat outside the door. Dogs, those he can deal with. He lets the dog out and feeds it and finds its collar on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

"Maggie," he reads off the dog tag. "That's your name, huh, girl?"

The dog wags her tail approvingly, then jerks her head up and runs across the kitchen to where Jensen's walking in, already wearing a coat and carrying a briefcase and saying, "All right, I'll pick Annie up after ballet, unless Tom Watson's a jackass and makes us talk about the basketball team for eight hours instead of actually discussing anything useful—again. I'll let you know if I need you to get her." He grabs a travel mug off the counter and fills it with coffee from the automatic-timer pot while he talks. "Don't forget to pack extra diapers for Josh, and I'll see you tonight, okay?"

He kisses Jared quickly before Jared can think to move out of the way—just a quick brush of lips, the mint of his toothpaste—and then he's out the door. Jared touches his mouth, dazed. "Shit," he says to the dog. "What am I supposed to do now?"

The dog's ears prick again and Jared glances at the doorway. Annie's standing there with her thumb in her mouth, looking very much like she's going to burst into tears at any second.

"You're not really my daddy, are you?"

*

It's pretty much a goddamned miracle, but Annie doesn't actually start crying. She asks where her daddy is, and Jared tells her he doesn't know but he's sure that her daddy loves her very much and that he'll be back as soon as he can. She nods, sniffs a little and decides that Jared is an alien, which he's willing to roll with. After determining that he's not going to kidnap her and Josh and suck their brains out, she shakes his hand very solemnly and says, "Welcome to Earth." It would be completely hilarious if he weren't on the edge of minor hysteria.

It turns out that the kid knows her stuff, though. She directs him through changing Josh's diaper—which, gross, he really does have diarrhea—and the fact that apparently he should be wearing a suit and packing lunches and dropping Josh off at daycare and taking her to school and she tells him when he's supposed to pick them up. When she climbs out of the car, Jared notices that she's wearing two different shoes, but whatever, he still thinks he's done pretty well for himself.

What Jared really wants to do now is go back to the house and find some ID and get the hell out of there, but he's supposed to be picking up Josh at 3:30 and Annie at 3:45 and dropping her off at ballet at 4:00, and he doesn't like thinking about Annie crying when the alien who looks just like her daddy doesn't show up. And okay, Jared's already been missing for more than a day; it's not like another day's going to make that big of a difference. If anyone asks he'll just say he was in rehab or something. It's a lot more likely than that he's in some drug-induced alternate universe where he has kids with Jensen Ackles, high school drama teacher.

So instead of heading back toward the house he rolls down the window and says, "Hey Annie? What do I do now?"

Annie frowns. "Well, Daddy usually goes to work after he drops me off at school."

"Where does your daddy work?" Jared asks, and Annie tells him.

*

In whatever this crazy, drug-induced universe is, Jared is a fucking local weatherman. They tell him he's a little too exuberant with the gesturing today, and that he really needs to stop standing in front of the low-pressure front he's trying to talk about, but from the way everyone's talking, it sounds like both of these things are pretty normal occurrences, so he's fine.

The most terrifying part about it? It's actually, in some intensely bizarre way, kind of fun.

*

Jared picks Josh up from preschool and drops Annie off at ballet. He even gets her there five minutes early. "You're not entirely terrible at this," she tells him when he pulls the car up. "Daddy's almost always late."

Jared's still grinning at the praise when he gets back to the house and realizes that he hasn't actually thought of going back to L.A. in hours. The thing is, that stripper had said something about L.A. being different than he's expecting, and he doesn't know why he gets the idea in his head, but after he puts Josh down on the couch in front of 101 Dalmatians, Jared sits down in front of the desktop computer he finds across the room and IMDBs himself.

His filmography basically ends after five seasons of Supernatural. There are a couple of guest spots after that on shows he's never heard of, and a few more mentions of himself on talk shows, but that's it. There are supposed to be a solid dozen more entries in each of the sections, at least: ten more feature films and a line about his Oscar nomination for The Fallen in his biography. There's nothing like that, just so much empty space.

Jared doesn't know why, but he knows after that. He already kind of knew on some level, but now he really knows: he can't fix this by just flying down to L.A. He can't fix it, and he doesn't have a damned clue of how to get out of here, whatever 'here' is. There's really nothing for it but to sit tight and hope he wakes up before the Oscars, because seriously, being in a coma all the way through February? That would really fucking suck.

*

Jensen walks in with Annie a little after five-thirty. He drops his briefcase by the door and walks right over to Jared. "I hate basketball," he says. "I hate basketball and football and the entire math department, they so do not need new calculators, and I have to sit through a whole 'nother day of this tomorrow." He moves toward Jared like he's going to kiss him and Jared's going to move out of the way, he really is, but Annie's in the background shaking her head frantically—so Jared stays right there and lets Jensen lay one on him. It's a lot like the kiss that morning, quick and closed-mouthed, so there's not really anything for Jared to freak out over. Jensen slumps against his chest afterwards and Jared pats his back awkwardly, unsure of what he's supposed to do. Annie's making the thumbs-up sign in the background, though, so probably he isn't totally fucking up.

"Please tell me you started cooking dinner," Jensen mumbles, shifting away from Jared's chest. He looks at the unlit stove—some kind of complicated gas top thing, definitely not the stove Jared remembers. "Dude, come on, you've been back since four!"

"I was watching 101 Dalmatians with Josh," Jared says defensively. And he had been, after he shut the computer back down. He's pretty sure he might have fallen asleep for a little while in there, because he definitely doesn't remember how exactly all the Dalmatians got covered in soot. "I didn't want to wake him up!"

Jensen snorts. "Right, because making Riceroni, that's so loud."

Jared's ears perk up. "We're having Riceroni?"

"It's your night to cook," Jensen says. "Of course we're having Riceroni."

"I love that stuff!" Jared says, opening the cabinet and staring at all the glorious boxes. "Dude, and Hamburger Helper?"

"Annie," Jensen says solemnly to the kid, "I'm pretty sure your daddy has actually gone insane."

For about half a second Jared's terrified that Annie's going to blow his cover. When he started thinking of this as a James Bond-style mission, he's not entirely sure, but he doesn't know what the hell he's going to do if Annie's quivering bottom lip goes all the way over into crying. But she gets her act together and says, "Don't be silly, Papa. He just really likes things that are easy to make!"

"Hmm," Jensen says. "This is true."

"Just because they're stupidly easy to prepare doesn't mean they're not delicious," Jared says. He's having a really hard time deciding between Chicken Teriyaki and Mexican Style.

"Just pick one before we all die of hunger," Jensen says, stepping up behind him and resting his head on Jared's shoulder.

Jared slips out of the touch as subtly as he can and turns to Annie, a box in each hand. "Hey, Annie, which one?"

She deliberates very carefully and then points to his left hand. "That one!" she says.

Mexican Style. "The kid's got good taste," Jared says.

Annie clings to Jensen's leg and beams up at Jared. "Dude, her taste in Riceroni? That's all from you."

"She's not actually my kid," Jared says. "Er, I mean. Is she, like—"

Jensen rolls his eyes and says, "Well yes, she's adopted, but that didn't mean she didn't get it from you anyway." He's looking at Jared with an annoyed sort of fondness as he says it.

For the briefest of seconds, something clenches in Jared's stomach, then Jensen isn't looking at him anymore and the moment has passed.

"I'm going to go wake up Josh and change his diaper," Jensen says. "Unless you already did it?"

"No, sorry," Jared says. He breathes easier once Jensen's out of the room. Annie's still there, though, looking up at him. "Uh," he says. "I don't guess you know how to turn on the stove, do you?"

Annie shakes her head. "Nope."

Jared prays he doesn't blow up the house and starts fiddling with the dials.

*

The kids both fall asleep right after dinner, and Jensen puts hockey on TV. There's a big leather chair next to the L-shaped sofa; Jared goes straight for the chair while Jensen's getting something out of the kitchen.

"Oh, no way," Jensen says when he walks into the room. "Get on the couch."

"What are you—"

Jensen grabs him by the arm and pulls him out of the chair. There's plenty of space on the couch, enough space that they could both spread all the way out and probably still not be touching, but Jensen parks Jared right next to him and says, "Okay, you're stressed, I get it. Look, I'll make you a deal: I'll give you a backrub if you promise not to change the channel."

"Um, I don't really—"

Jensen covers Jared's mouth with his hand. "Oh yeah, also? No talking."

"Mmph," Jared says. Jensen's already kneading Jared's right shoulder with his free hand, though, and the thing is? It feels really fucking good. Jensen removes his hand from Jared's mouth and waits until Jared says, "Okay."

"Good," Jensen says, shifting up against Jared's back. "But I mean it, dude, if I look at the screen and it's on Shark Week or something, I'm going to be seriously pissed."

"Shark Week's in August," Jared says, but then Jensen's got both hands on Jared's shoulders and whatever he's doing, it's seriously awesome: digging his fingers deep into Jared's muscles and working the tension. He keeps finding the balls of stress in Jared's back before Jared can even feel them all the way, and the pleasure that moves through him when Jensen releases them is like—he doesn't even know what it's like. Something totally fucking amazing.

When Jensen slides his hands down Jared's back and rucks up his shirt, Jared's pretty sure he's supposed to protest. He's pretty much boneless, though, melted into the couch, and Jensen's already got his hands on Jared's skin anyway, concentrating his thumbs on each of Jared's vertebra. There's not much point in protesting now, so he relaxes into it.

Jensen's fingers get even better the moment Jared does that. Jared's pretty sure that Jensen's relieving stress that doesn't even exist yet, stress that won't be here until five or ten years down the line and maybe not even then, because if Jensen keeps doing this long enough, Jared's not going to remember what stress even is.

Jared's so thoroughly at one with the couch that he doesn't even notice Jensen's touches becoming gradually lighter and lighter until finally he pulls his hands out from under Jared's shirt and presses a kiss to the back of Jared's neck. Jared doesn't even think about moving. That would require a level of brain function so high he cannot actually remember what it is.

"Come here," Jensen says, shifting backwards and pulling Jared's head down onto his lap. Jared's got enough room on the couch that he can stretch his legs all the way out, so he does. The leather of the sofa down by his legs hasn't been warmed with body heat, but Jensen's hand is moving absently over his hair, stroking his head, and everything is pretty much okay.

*

Jared actually wakes up before the alarm goes off in the morning. There's a fraction of a second of doubt where he thinks that he might be back in his normal life, but he's registered the flannel sheets and the baby monitor on the nightstand and by then he's out of bed and heading for the shower because he doesn't actually remember when the last time he got to take a shower was.

The shower's different than it was when he bought the house, too, but the controls aren't really that tricky. He's under the spray and just getting to the point where he's starting to feel like something of a human being again when he notices that there's a second showerhead on the wall opposite him.

About two seconds after that, the bathroom door opens and then the shower door, and Jensen steps into the shower with him. Jared tries to scramble backwards but there's really nowhere to go; it's big enough for the two of them but definitely not as big as, say, Antarctica. And if Jared could be there right now, that would be awesome; it might actually be far enough away.

"I thought the bathroom door was locked!" Jared sputters.

"Please, like you've actually forgotten the time Annie barfed all over the hall because you didn't want her to walk in on us fucking in the shower," Jensen says, turning on the second showerhead.

Jared gapes. "We fuck in the shower?"

"Yes, Jared," Jensen says, packing more sarcasm into those two words than Jared even knew was possible. "We fuck in the shower."

For about half a second, Jared thinks Jensen's going to grab him and do—he doesn't know what, but something—with him right then. Instead Jensen just reaches past him for the shampoo and starts showering.

This is okay. Jared's shared showers with guys before; he can do this. And okay, so it was in high school, and it was huge open group showers instead of ones in an enclosed space with just one guy, but he's done it before, and it was fine. It's going to be totally fine. Jensen's acting like this is something that happens all the time, that they just shower together, and probably Jensen and this other universe Jared do, and nobody freaks out about it.

So Jared washes his hair and scrubs his shoulders with a washcloth and doesn't at all watch the way Jensen tilts his head up under the spray to rinse the soap off his face. Jared instead concentrates very hard on scrubbing between his toes and on not looking up, but after a while he does look up; he can't help it. And it's ridiculous: Jensen's hair is flattened down against his skull, and he's freaking scrubbing under his armpits. There couldn't possibly be anything sexy about it, so Jared really doesn't know why a flash of want moves through him when he looks at Jensen right then. Jensen's so fucking close to him—half a step and Jared could touch him—and it occurs to him that in this place, whatever it is, he can touch him; he's allowed.

Jared swallows and takes that half step and kisses Jensen: closed-mouthed at first, but then Jensen groans against his mouth and opens his lips under Jared's. Jared opens his mouth and lets Jensen's tongue slip in. It feels way better than it has any right to, the rough scratch of Jensen's stubble against his cheek. Jared fits a hand to Jensen's hip, holds him steady—so that he'll stay there, Jared realizes, so that he won't move away. It's the first time he's had that thought.

Nothing else happens, though. Jensen doesn't try anything. Nothing happens except that they kiss in the shower until their lips are fat and red.

*

Jared takes the kids to school again. It's raining a little this morning, so Annie makes him walk all the way to the door with her under the golf umbrella she finds in the backseat, even though she's already got on a bright yellow raincoat and rubber boots.

"I don't have ballet today," she says, "but you'll still remember to come get me, right?"

"At 3:45?"

"Yup," Annie says. She glances toward the door, then grabs his leg. "I miss my daddy," she says.

Jared pats her awkwardly on the head and quickly says, "I'm sure he misses you too and he'll get back to you as soon as he can. But you've got to help me out until then, okay?"

Annie sniffs and releases his leg. "Okay."

Jared exhales. "Okay. Good. I'll see you at 3:45."

"And get Josh at 3:30." She wipes her nose with her hand.

"Right," Jared says. "Him too. Got it."

"Okay, see you then!" Annie turns and runs into the building, and Jared drives to work.

It turns out that Chad works at the TV station too. He's one of the producers or something; Jared's not entirely sure what, but he isn't on camera at any rate, and the fact that he isn't is quite possibly the best thing Chad has ever done for society. Chad talks him through everything he's supposed to be doing that morning: "You're coming on after the third story instead of the fourth, the research people are saying that'll help our ratings or something?"

"What, you mean if people get to see my face earlier they're more likely not to change the channel or something?" Jared asks.

"Or something," Chad says. "They're also going to have to Katherine Wortham with you for the desk slot." He makes a face.

"Is that . . . bad?" Jared fields, but someone needs Chad across the room and they're calling Jared to get into makeup, anyway, so he doesn't even know find out Katherine Wortham is until they're about to go live and Jared's sitting down at the desk next to a hot blonde and she's following his, "I'm Jared Padalecki," with, "And I'm Katherine Wortham. It sure has been a wet one this morning, hasn't it, folks?"

Jared doesn't think he's imagining it: Katherine Wortham keeps sneaking looks at him. He catches her at it a couple of times while they're on camera, but she's doing it way more after they wrap up their slot and the newscasters take back over.

"It's so lovely to be working with you again, Jared," she says, beaming. "I can call you Jared, right?" She lays a hand on his arm as they walk toward the water cooler.

"Sure you can," Jared says, smiling at her. He takes a good long look at Katherine: tall, leggy, nice rack—just the kind of woman he likes. And oh man, this is easy; he doesn't even have to think about this. This is just the kind of normal he's needed and hasn't gotten in days. "How long have we known each other?"

She laughs lightly. "Nearly five years now. You came to the station just after I did." Without ever actually rearranging her top she's somehow managing to show way more cleavage than she was three minutes ago. "I was so excited to hear that we were going to be getting to work together directly again. It's been such a long time."

"Yeah, it really has," Jared says. "Hey, I think it's nearly time for lunch. If you're free, maybe we could, you know. Get to know each other a little better?"

Her eyes light up with surprise and pleasure. "Oh, of course, Jared, that would be—"

"I'm sorry, he forgot he's already got lunch plans," Chad says, wedging himself between Jared and Katherine. "Come on, buddy, we're going to be late."

"You sure we can't cancel and do this another day?" Jared says, glaring at him.

Chad glares right back. "I'm sure. Come on."

Jared catches Katherine's face, tight and confused, out of the corner of his eye. As soon as they're around the corner and out of earshot Jared hisses at Chad. "What the hell are you doing?"

"What the hell am I doing?" Chad still hasn't let go of Jared. He's got Jared's arm in something of a death grip, and his fingers only dig in deeper. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I totally had a chance to get with her!" Jared says.

Chad doesn't say anything at all for a long moment; he just stares at Jared with his jaw working. "Are you even hearing yourself talk here, man? Because okay, in case you missed this? You're married." He grabs Jared's hand and okay, Jared knew it before—there aren't that many things a pair of matching gold rings can mean—but no one had ever straight-up said it to him before, and so he'd been able to ignore it. But now he can't; he can't ignore it.

Chad's still talking. "And look, I know you went through this when you and Jensen first got together, the whole freaking-out-about-being-gay thing, but damn it, Jared, that was ten years ago! I thought you were over that by now!"

"Um," Jared says.

"Look," Chad says. "You remember what you said to me when I told you I was thinking about breaking up with Sophia and getting with Kenzie?"

"What?" Jared says.

"You said you weren't going to let me fuck up the best thing in my life just because I wanted some new pussy. And I'm telling you the same thing now: I get that taking it up the ass has got to be weird as hell—"

Jared blanches. "I take it up the ass?"

"That is more than I ever wanted to know about your and Jensen's sex life," Chad says. "But look, Jensen loves you, and you've got kids, and getting some action with Katherine Wortham is so not worth losing all that, you know? If you're having problems with Jensen, you want to talk to him about it, not just go bang random women."

"We're not having problems," Jared says quickly.

"So it's really just about missing the pussy then? All right, man, I get it, I really do. Pussy's awesome. But let me just say, I really don't think you would have stayed with Jensen for the past ten years if, y'know," he gestures vaguely, "the sex wasn't good."

"Oh my God," Jared says.

There's a moment of silence during which they both contemplate the fact that they just talked about Jared's sex life.

"Right, so just so we're clear," Chad begins. "You're not throwing away your marriage and your kids just so you can sleep with Katherine Wortham. Or anyone else."

"Um." It's not even Jared's marriage, or Jared's kids, but he still pretty much feels like the biggest asshole in the world. "No, I'm not."

"Good." Chad relaxes visibly. "Now can we please never talk about this again?"

"Oh God, yes," Jared says.

*

That doesn't mean he doesn't think about it.

Jared doesn't really know how this alternative universe thing works. Is the whole thing just a figment of his imagination, or has he actually taken the place of an actual other version of himself? Is that Jared stuck in L.A. right now, trying to figure out how to get back to Jensen and his kids? It's making Jared's brain hurt just to think about it.

If there really is another version of him out there, though, Jared really can't fuck up his life by cheating on Jensen. Chad was right to make him promise not to do that.

The other stuff, though. About his and Jensen's sex life. He hadn't wanted to think about it before, but that's why he'd jumped on Katherine Wortham's flirtation so quickly. Not that he wouldn't have done it anyway, probably, had he met her back in his ordinary life, but today it's just—he spent fifteen minutes kissing another man in the shower this morning. And okay, it's Jensen; it's not like it was any random guy, but the thing is that he liked kissing Jensen, more than he's ever liked kissing, well, anyone.

Most of the people he's dated or fucked haven't really been that into kissing. It never bothered him much; he never really stopped to think about it. Sandy, for instance, didn't mind kissing, so long as they weren't both standing up. He had to be sitting on a couch or something, to make up for the height difference. When they were having sex, she hardly ever kissed him; she liked to have sex and be done with it. And the other women he's slept with—some of them liked kissing, sure, but it was always part of foreplay. This morning in the shower with Jensen, it hadn't been like that. They'd just been kissing for the sake of kissing, because kissing felt good. Jared can't remember the last time he just made out with someone without the promise of something more; probably not since high school.

But the something more? He's thinking about it now. It kind of freaks him out, but he's thinking about it. Jensen makes chicken parmesan for dinner, and Jared watches Jensen's hands as he shifts the breaded chicken around in the skillet, as he cuts the food into little pieces for Josh.

"We don't want you putting the entire thing in your mouth all at once again, do we, buddy?" Jensen says. "Why don't we want that?"

"Because choking is bad," Annie pipes up.

Jensen points in her direction and nods. "Exactly. Listen to your sister, there, Josh. She's a smart kid."

Josh gleefully stuffs five little pieces of chicken in his mouth while Jensen isn't looking anyway. For a moment Jared's worried—because like, Josh might not actually be his kid, but that's probably not going to be that convincing an argument if Jared knowingly lets him choke—but then Josh spits the half-gnawed chicken back on his plate and giggles, and everything's fine.

Jared and Jensen do the dishes together after dinner while Annie carefully explains why Maggie can't have people food to Josh. "She has to eat her dog food because otherwise it'll make her tummy upset and them she'll throw up on the rug and Daddy will have to clean it up."

Josh nods solemnly in response.

"Do you think he actually has any idea what she's saying?" Jared asks before he can think better of it.

Jensen shrugs, his hands submerged in the soapy water. "I figure just because he isn't talking doesn't mean he doesn't know exactly what we're saying. Your sister didn't start talking until really late, did she?"

"Fair enough," Jared says. "And her first word was 'poopface.'"

Jensen snorts. "Yeah, I remember you telling me."

Jared nearly writes it off as one more thing he doesn't know about being here, but then he remembers: that was something he told Jensen back when they were filming Supernatural, something that actually happened for him too. Somehow the thought of it makes him grin stupidly. "You remember what her second word was?"

"'Snot-rag,'" Jensen supplies immediately, handing Jared the frying pan to dry. "I can only hope that Josh will reach for such heights."

"Yeah, me too," Jared says, putting the pan in the drawer under the stove and muttering, "Poopface."

It feels surprisingly normal, the whole thing: doing the dishes with Jensen, bantering with him. And maybe it's just that that's something they used to do before in this same house: order in a bunch of food and watch football and get enough plates dirty that Jensen would make him help do the dishes afterwards because, "Seriously, man, Roseanne has enough to clean up after with the dogs, so you really don't need to go leaving dishes in there for a week on top of that, and I know that's what you'd do."

Maybe that's all there is to it, the familiarity of it, but the feeling doesn't go away even as they're putting the kids to bed. And afterwards, Jensen says, "Hey, you ready for bed?"

And it feels pretty close to normal to say, "Yeah, sure," and follow him into the bedroom.

Once they get into the bedroom, it stops feeling normal: Jensen kisses his mouth and pushes him down onto the bed. Jared's always had a thing for tall women—which might, in retrospect, explain something of why it didn't work out with Sandy—but none of the women he's been with were strong, really, definitely not strong enough to control him. Jensen, on the other hand? He's straddling him and working Jared's fly open while kissing him and Jared's about to call time-out, really he is, when Jensen starts sliding back down to the floor.

"You want me to suck you?" Jensen says, looking up at Jared and taking his bottom lip between his teeth.

Want cuts through Jared's stomach. "You want to suck me?" He can't actually remember the last time anyone straight-up offered to give him head. "I'm not exactly, uh. Small."

"Really," Jensen says dryly. "I had no idea." He works Jared's jeans and boxers down and touches Jared's dick.

"I mean it," Jared says, trying to keep his voice steady while Jensen pulls him a couple of times, lazily. "You seriously want to suck me?"

"Fuck, yeah," Jensen says. "Dude, you know I love it." He shifts forward on his knees and licks the head of Jared's dick, then takes it into his mouth. He sucks hard and concentrates his tongue on the underside and runs his fingers on the smooth skin behind Jared's balls.

"Oh holy shit," Jared gasps, bucking off the bed. He doesn't think he's actually capable of forming sentences. It's just—Jesus Christ, if he'd known there were going to be blowjobs? He would have been on board with this whole thing a hell of a lot faster. Because yeah, he's gotten blowjobs before, but not frequently and never voluntarily. With Sandy, sure, he got it—she had a tiny mouth, death by choking didn't sound that fun—but Jensen doesn't seem to have that problem. He's taking Jared most of the way down, and he's gripping the base of Jared's dick with his free hand. Jared can't seem to keep his hips from moving but Jensen's going with it; he can take it.

Jensen's other hand is still playing with the skin behind his balls, which would freak Jared out if it weren't for the fact that Jensen's doing something fucking amazing with his tongue right now and sucking harder than Jared would have actually thought was possible for anything but one of those really expensive vacuum cleaners, and Jared doesn't know how much longer he's going to be able to survive at all, let alone keep from coming.

Jared taps Jensen's shoulder to warn him, but he just tightens his grip around Jared's dick and somehow sucks even harder and keeps his mouth on Jared's dick while he comes. Jared doesn't think he's shot this hard since he was in high school. Jensen swallows but he doesn't get nearly all of it—there's come on his chin and his face and even his chest—and Jared's going to apologize for it, except then Jensen says, "I knew there was a reason I kept you around," and fucking licks his chin, and if it were possible to come again right now, Jared probably would have just done it.

"Jesus Christ, you're good at that," Jared says wonderingly, flopping backwards on the bed.

"And we now have conclusive proof that coming makes you stupid. I didn't even deep-throat you!"

Jared nearly falls off the bed. "You can deep-throat?"

Jensen sighs. "See? Conclusive proof." He crawls up beside Jared on the bed. Somehow he's managed to get out of his clothes in the meantime. Jared feels weird having a shirt on when Jensen's naked. He pulls it off and drops it on the floor, and that's when Jensen says, "Hey, grab the lube out of the nightstand, would you?"

A second ago Jared would have sworn he wasn't going to be able to move for a couple of hours or possibly a year, but at that he's moving pretty damned fast. "Lube," he says. "As in—"

"As in, it's my turn," Jensen says, grinning wickedly. "Don't try and fool me, man. I know you, and I know you want it."

Jared freezes. "I, uh. Um. Do you think we can maybe do something else instead?" Because yeah, Jared just came; it's not fair to think that that's the end of it, although maybe that's what he'd been thinking. Maybe he can get away with just jerking Jensen off, but something from the way Jensen's looking at him makes him think that maybe he's not going to get away with that.

"Uh, sure?" Jensen says, although it looks like that's not really what he means at all.

"Let me just—can I suck you?" As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Jared wants to take them back; but Jensen just gave him a blowjob, and as much as it's making him want to panic, fair is fair. And it doesn't involve getting fucked up the ass, which is really more than Jared can deal with right this second.

"Sure," Jensen says. He still looks a little puzzled, but Jared's not going to worry about that right now. It's a big bed, so when Jensen backs against the headboard and cants his hips up, there's plenty of room for Jared to stretch out on his stomach and breathe down on Jensen's dick. It's smaller than his own but it's still pretty big and it's wide and red, and suddenly Jared has a far greater appreciation for Sandy's hesitation in giving blowjobs. He swallows and licks lightly against the tip.

"God, are you trying to kill me here with the teasing?" Jensen says.

"Sorry," Jared says, and licks again, a little harder. There's some precome leaking out already; it's salty and not entirely unpleasant but also it's come, and oh God, he's about to suck a dick.

"Fucking do it already," Jensen bites out.

When Jared was a kid, his cousins used to have a lake house in Arkansas that they drove up to sometimes. It wasn't a big lake, but it had a tire swing that you could grab onto and swing out and hit the water flying from ten feet up. He and Jeff and Megan and their cousins used to spend hours out there, trying to see who could get the best cannonball or jackknife. It was hardly ever Jared; he was too gangly for it, especially when he was a kid and couldn't really keep control of his limbs. The thing about that lake, though, was that no matter how hot it got outside, and no matter how many times you'd already jumped off the tire swing that day, the water never stopped being completely fucking freezing. There was nothing for it but to jump in, though, jump and fight against the icy prickling of the water until you got enough control over your body to swim. Waiting never made it any better, only built the anticipation up until it got to be almost too much to take—and it's like that now, staring down Jensen's dick and thinking about it too hard.

Jared takes it into his mouth and sucks.

It's less weird than he'd have thought it would be. It doesn't feel like anything other than flesh in his mouth—flesh in the shape of a dick, yeah, but when he licks around the head Jensen makes sputtering noises and it's pretty hot. Okay, it's really hot. Jared's supposed to have a sexuality crisis over that, he thinks, except he's already got a dick in his mouth, so maybe it's a little late.

So he goes with it. He sticks a couple fingers in his mouth next to Jensen's dick, gets them wet with spit and reaches down to touch Jensen's balls. He's pretty sure that Jensen actually has bigger balls than he does, which is really not fair—Jared's a good three inches taller than he is, at least, and his dick's definitely bigger—but whatever, Jared's reasonably sure that if he's in a world where he and Jensen are married, they've probably already had the size conversation enough to last them a lifetime.

Jensen's really working his hips right now, but Jared's doing an okay job of taking it. He only gags when the tip of Jensen's dick hits his throat, but that doesn't stop either of them for long. And then Jensen's breath goes even more ragged than before and he says, "Gonna come," and Jared means to swallow, he does, but Jensen thrusts when he isn't ready for it and slips out of Jared's mouth a little and comes all over Jared's face instead.

Incongruously, Jensen starts laughing. "Man, are we roleplaying now? Because that was a pretty good impression of a first time."

Jared's flushing, but he's pretty sure it's impossible to tell under all the come. "Is there a towel or something?"

"Oh, shut up," Jensen says, pulling Jared onto the bed and licking the come off Jared's face.

Jared's a little distracted by that for a while, but then he remembers: "Wait, we roleplay?"

Jensen looks at him and grins wickedly, but the tips of his ears are definitely a little red. "I don't know what else you want to call the garter belt and corset," he says.

"Oh Jesus Christ," Jared says in a small voice.

"Yeah. That was a good anniversary."

"Uh-huh," Jared says weakly.

Jensen shifts up against Jared's side, grabs his face and tilts it down to kiss him. Jensen's mouth tastes like come. Jared doesn't actually mind. They kiss lazily for a long time, mouths moving against each other, until Jared realizes Jensen's kind of been letting him do all the work for a while. He opens his eyes: Jensen's already asleep. Jared smiles against his mouth and shifts around until the duvet is over them both, then pulls Jensen closer to him and closes his eyes again.

*

When Jared wakes up, Jensen is rocking slowly against his thigh. Jared opens his eyes, breathing out slowly, and Jensen grins at him without a trace of shame.

"Hey," he says, kissing Jared's neck. "We've probably got time to have sex right now. The alarm hasn't—"

The buzzer sounds before Jared's panic can fully build. He's never been so grateful for an alarm clock in his life.

"Never mind." Jensen sighs, and rolling out of bed and getting in the shower.

Jared doesn't think he breathes regularly again until he's in Josh's room, changing his diaper while Annie looks on. "You have to take the paper off the sticky part first," Annie says, pointing.

"Right," Jared says. The diaper sticks a lot better after that. Jared knew about that part of changing a diaper before; he's just a little distracted this morning, right, because last night he gave Jensen a blowjob to keep Jensen from fucking him up the ass, and this morning Jensen wanted to try it again, and he's sort of starting to run out of excuses. Oh God, he's pretty sure he's not supposed to be even thinking about sex around the kids, regardless of the fact that he's thinking about how he doesn't want it, because kids should never have to think about their parents having sex, and the fact that he never actually walked in on his parents is one of the single greatest things about his childhood—

And he gets a brilliant idea. "Hey Annie," he says, holding Josh upright so he can get his pants back on. "Do you ever have bad dreams and go and sleep with Daddy and Papa?"

"I used to," Annie says, "but I don't anymore, but I'm a big girl now, and Daddy said that big girls sleep in their beds the whole night."

Jared has never hated himself so much as he does right at the moment. Or rather, the other version of himself who thought that convincing a four-year-old that not interrupting sex was a good idea. "Do you ever still sleep in their room?"

Annie frowns. "No."

Jared bounces Josh against his side. "Do you think you could tonight anyway, though? As a favor to me?"

"I don't know," Annie says slowly. "I mean, Daddy said—"

"I know what your daddy said, and look, usually you should listen to what your daddy says, I'm sure he's right, but could you please do this for me? Just this once?" Annie isn't looking particularly convinced. He wonders if maybe he could get Josh to do it, but Josh is two years old and still not speaking, so it's not like he's really going to get any confirmation from him. In a fit of desperation Jared adds, "I'll get you ice cream if you do this. Please, Annie?"

Annie considers. "With sprinkles?"

Jared nearly drops Josh, he's so relieved. "Yes, with sprinkles. It can have like a million sprinkles and be in a waffle cone and whatever you want, as long as you come sleep in our room tonight."

Annie giggles. "You're silly."

Jared's not about to argue with the kid who just saved his ass—literally—so he just says, "Yep. You ready for school?"

"Josh should get ice cream too," Annie says. "So it's fair."

Josh grins like he understands.

"Sure," Jared says. "Ice cream for all! Get your backpack."

*

While Jensen's putting Josh to bed that night, Jared leans in to whisper to Annie, "You remember what to do, right?"

"Why are we whispering?" Annie says, too loudly.

"Because it's a secret," Jared says. "You always whisper when you're talking about secrets."

"Oh, okay." Annie nods sagely.

"So wait like fifteen minutes and then come in our room, okay?" Jared says.

"Okay."

Jared sort of pats her on the shoulder and goes into the bedroom. Jensen's already in bed, reading a script Jared's reasonably sure is Fiddler on the Roof—the drama department's spent the entirety of winter break trying to figure out which musical they're going to perform in the spring, Jared was able to get that out of the dinner conversation without actually making a fool of himself—he should have worked for the CIA instead of becoming an actor, he's so stealthy. It looks like Jensen's settling in for a while with the script; he's got his glasses on and everything. Jared might have been worrying a little too much about the whole sex issue.

When he gets out of the bathroom, though, Jensen puts the script down immediately and says, "Hey, get over here."

Jared goes. He crawls over the bed to Jensen and lets Jensen kiss him—kisses him back even, because kissing, that's fine, that's not getting fucked up the ass. And even when Jensen slides his boxers down, that's okay. Jensen might just want blowjobs. But when Jensen starts fumbling around in the bedside drawer again, Jared's not feeling quite so awesome about this. His pulse is spiking way about normal and he can't really breathe and if Annie fell asleep instead of coming in here, he's— Well, it's not like he can punish her for this or anything, but damn it, the idea of the look on Jensen's face when Jared tries to get out of this again . . .

Jensen comes up with the lube and condom, triumphant, at the exact moment that Annie says, "Daddy? Papa? I can't sleep."

Jensen sighs and shuts the drawer again.

"Come here, honey," Jared says, successfully resisting the urge to pump the air with his fist in relief. "What's the matter?"

"I had a nightmare," she says, climbing onto the bed and snuggling against his side. She's got just the right sleepy look, like she might have actually really fallen asleep and had a nightmare in the past twenty minutes. The kid is good.

To look at Jensen, you wouldn't have any idea the guy had seemed frustrated as hell a couple minutes ago. "You want to talk about it?" he asks, stroking her hair. He does it just the way he'd done for Jared a couple nights ago on the couch; it's an odd sensation in his stomach, knowing exactly how good that feels against his head.

"I don't remember what happened," Annie says. "I just know it was bad."

"Okay," Jared says. "You can sleep here tonight. We'll make sure nothing happens to you."

"Okay," Annie says sleepily, burrowing against him. Within a couple minutes she's fast asleep, a warm weight on Jared's side, and Jensen removes his hand from her head. It doesn't wake her.

"I think she's really asleep," Jensen whispers.

"Yeah," Jared says. The pillow's starting to feel pretty good to him too, like he could sink his head down into it and not roll over all night long.

"Great. You want to help me move her?"

"What?" Jared hisses, alarmed. "No! We might wake her up!"

There's a short silence in which it's clear that Jensen's frustration is mounting again. "Dude, you know she sleeps like the dead once she's actually asleep. Come on, let's do this already."

"She hasn't slept in here in ages," Jared counters. "Can't we just let her stay here? Just once?"

Jensen sits up on his elbow and looks at him. Jared tries to make his expression as innocent as possible. "It's totally not fair of you to use the puppy eyes." Jensen sighs and lies back down. Jared knows he's safe even before Jensen says, "Fine, one last time."

Jared sleeps well that night, even though he wakes up with half the blankets kicked off the bed. Annie's like a tiny human furnace on his side.

*

When Jared says he's tired the next night, Jensen looks at him like he's sprouted a pair of antlers. "Are you coming down with something?" Jensen asks.

"Not that I'm aware of?" It comes out as more of a question than anything else. "Why?"

"Oh, I don't know, because the last time you didn't want to have sex, you ended up in the hospital with pneumonia, maybe? Let me know if this is starting to sound familiar." The frustration coloring Jensen's voice is way stronger than it was last night, and Jared's really starting to feel a little guilty. But like, nowhere near guilty enough to want Jensen to fuck him up the ass.

"I think I'm fine," Jared insists. "Really. I'm just tired."

"All right," Jensen sighs, and rolls over. His voice is kind of muffled from the other side of the bed, but Jared can still hear him muttering under his breath—things like, "Emergency room," and, "Three a.m.," and, "If he wakes me up in the middle of the night because he can't breathe, I'm going to fucking kill him."

Jared's pretty sure he's joking—Jensen really would take him to the emergency room if he weren't breathing at three a.m., he's certain of that—but there's an undercurrent of worry in his voice too, one that Jared can't quite pin down.

So it's sort of a relief in the morning when Jared wakes up and feels like he's going to die.

*

Jensen's definitely not going to be trying to have sex with him when he's like this, his nose massively runny, his breathing all wheezy and his head feeling like it's the size of a blimp. So yeah, it's really kind of nice, except for the part where he feels like he's going to die. Also, the implication that refusing sex leads directly to life-threatening illness is fairly disturbing; and up to this point, completely untested, Jared realizes. He doesn't think he's ever refused sex before in his life, except for maybe once at a WB Christmas party when he was eighteen and he'd been really drunk and hadn't actually realized it was an offer until after the fact, so it totally doesn't count—and anyway, he'd spent the whole next day ridiculously hung-over, so that was kind of like life-threatening illness, and seriously, if deathly illness is what he's going to get for refusing sex, he's totally never doing that again. Unless it's sex that involves a dick in his asshole, in which case a little West Nile is probably fine.

"I seriously doubt it's West Nile," Jensen says, checking the thermometer he just stuck in Jared's ear. "Isn't that spread by mosquitoes? I don't know if you noticed, but it's January right now. I don't think there are too many of them still around."

"There could be rogue mosquitoes," Jared insists.

"Mmm-hmm." Jensen taps at the thermometer. "You've only got a temperature of 101. If you had West Nile it'd be like, 106 at least."

"If I have a temperature of 106, I'd be dead," Jared moans.

"Most likely," Jensen agrees, way too cheerfully. "Don't worry, I doubt you've got West Nile. It's probably just the flu."

"As in the same flu that millions of people caught during World War I and they died?"

"Medicine has advanced a little in the past hundred years," Jensen says. "You're not going to die."

Jensen takes the day off work anyway, and asks Chad and Sophia if they can watch the kids. "I don't want them catching West Nile virus," Jensen says, his mouth upturned at the edges. "You're not going to die in the next fifteen minutes while I'm taking them over there, are you?"

Jared snots what feels like half his brain into a Kleenex. "I hope not." His voice sounds like it's coming from underwater.

"I'll be back soon," Jensen says. He leans over like he's going to kiss Jared, but thinks better of it halfway through and touches his hand to Jared's forehead instead, then goes.

When Jared wakes up again, Jensen's sprawled on the bed beside him and he's got golf on the TV. "Do people even play golf in January?" Jared rasps. He pretty much feels like he just tried to swallow a golf ball, and it's stuck halfway down his throat. Which is also full of mucus.

"It's ESPN Classic," Jensen explains. "How're you feeling?"

Jared burrows deeper into the pillows in response. The closer to the bed he gets, the less he feels like his head might explode. "If I never move again," Jared says, with great effort, "it would still be too soon."

"You hungry?"

"Oh God, no. I don't think I can swallow." He's buried so deeply in the pillows that he's not sure Jensen will be able to understand him, but somehow he does.

"You should drink something, at least. Keep you from wasting away to nothing. If I make you some Gatorade, will you drink it?"

"Ulgh," Jared says.

A few minutes later, though, Jensen's back with a glass of Gatorade made with way too much powder, just the way Jared likes it. Jared manages to down most of the glass before he sinks into sleep again.

*

Jared wakes up once in the middle of the night to Jensen's fingers brushing the sweaty hair off his forehead. He thinks he hears Jensen whisper, "I love you," but Jared's still half-asleep; he can't be sure.

*

The next morning the lump lodged in Jared's throat feels closer to the size of a cherry tomato than a golf ball, and he's pretty sure he'll be good to move again in another month or so as opposed to never. So hey, that's an improvement. Jensen still insists on taking a second day off. It's not until ten or so that Jared realizes the kids aren't around, which says a lot about how sick he is.

"Don't worry, they're still with Chad and Sophia," Jensen says.

"You sure they don't mind keeping the kids this long?" Jared doesn't remember his parents ever being really sick, but he's pretty sure that if they were, they would have kept them around rather than farming them out to the neighbors.

"Are you kidding? Sophia practically begged me to let them stay. School doesn't start for another week. She's bored out of her mind."

"What do you mean, school doesn't start?"

"The sickness has addled your mind," Jensen says sadly. "You'd think you could remember Sophia's an elementary school librarian since she's been one for the past seven years. Anyway, she'll be able to keep Chad from showing them too much South Park. Probably."

It takes Jared a minute to recover from the fact that Chad is married to a hot librarian. Like, she wasn't a librarian when Chad met her, but still. Hot librarian. "South Park is a totally legit kids' show," Jared says. "It's a cartoon!"

Jensen just gives him the eyebrow.

"They need to see it for cultural awareness!" Jared argues.

"You know, no matter how many times you say that, it's not going to get any more convincing," Jensen says. He's smiling a little, though. Jared bets Jensen lets him get away with showing the kids South Park all the time. It's kind of reassuring to know that he's used the same argument before. Or rather, that the other version of him has used it.

It's weird to think about the line between him and the other version of him: how he is married to Jensen, here, but he also isn't—he still knows all about his other life, in which he never had any idea that he could be Jensen's husband or Annie and Josh's dad—and all of a sudden he's overwhelmed by the urge to come clean, to tell Jensen all of it.

Jared's quiet for a long moment, and then he says slowly, "Hey Jensen, do you ever feel like this maybe . . . I don't know, isn't your life?"

He can feel Jensen shifting onto his elbow beside him, to take a better look at him. "What do you mean?"

Jared keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling. I mean I'm not your husband. He thinks it and intends to say it but finds, somehow, that he can't do it. He can't say that out loud. "I mean, after Supernatural ended, is this where you saw us, ten years down the road? It's just—sometimes it doesn't seem real."

Jensen laughs. "What, that we're married with kids in Vancouver? A drama teacher and a weatherman? Yeah, I think I know what you mean."

Jared just waits in the hopes that Jensen will keep talking. And sure enough, Jensen continues, "I wonder what would have happened if either of us had landed a big role and gotten famous—like, really famous. Couldn't walk down the street without being recognized, that kind of famous. Because it could have gone that way, you know? You were good, man. You could have been huge."

Yeah, Jared knows. He knows that way too well. "But I didn't get huge," he says, rolling so he can see Jensen's face.

"No," Jensen says, tracing a line along Jared's arm. "You didn't. You remember how it went?"

He gives Jared long enough to say, "Yeah," if he wanted to—if he did remember how it had gone—but Jared doesn't say it.

"You flew down to L.A. the week after the show ended," Jensen says. "You were going to ask Sandy to marry you. You'd been together for nearly seven years, and you'd bought the ring and everything—"

"The little diamond on the platinum band, because she didn't want anything fancy," Jared says — because he knows that, because that part happened for him, too.

"Yeah," Jensen says. His fingers have moved farther down to Jared's arm, moving over the fine bones of his wrist. "You got all the way down there, and you took her to the restaurant in the Getty at sunset, you remember? We'd spent all that time going through the different ways you could propose—all that goofy shit you were thinking of—and you'd finally decided you were just going to go for traditional, get down on one knee and pop the question. So you sat all the way through appetizers and salad and the main course and right before dessert, you finally got down on one knee—" Jared remembers everything up to this point, remembers it perfectly well.

"And you broke up with her," Jensen finishes.

"I got all the way down on one knee and I broke up with her," Jared says.

"Yup," Jensen says. "You'd rented that house in Malibu and everything and you'd packed up a bunch of shit and took the dogs. You said you were going to stay for a week or so and then you were going to come back to Vancouver and figure out what to do from there, and it was kind of crazy, but I swear I thought you were going to go to L.A. and you weren't ever going to come back and you were going to, I don't know, hire a cleaning service to pack up your house and I wasn't ever going to hear from you again except for like, a phone call on my birthday or something."

Jared doesn't tell him that, in a world that isn't this one, that's exactly how it happened. He doesn't say that he asked Sandy to marry him and that she said yes, or that he called Jensen pretty often for the first few weeks, but then he landed his first big role, and it shot on location in Argentina, and he didn't call Jensen once after that for nearly six months. He doesn't say that he and Sandy stayed engaged for another two years before she broke up with him for a photographer she met through her modeling, and he doesn't say that long before she broke up with him, he'd had a pretty good idea it was coming. He doesn't say that in the eight years since then, he has no idea how many women he's slept with, but he can count on one hand the number of women he's been with more than once.

Jared doesn't say any of that. What he says is, "That's not what happened, though."

Jensen smiles at him. "No, it isn't. You came back."

Jared wants him to say more. He wants him to explain what happened after that, how they went from being friends to being married with kids—he's greedy for the details. He wants to say that there's no fucking way it was as simple as him coming back to Vancouver and them getting together, just like that. But Jensen is smiling at him, not so much tracing lines on Jared's arm anymore as just letting his hand rest on top of Jared's, and maybe it was that simple. Maybe in this world, it was.

*

Jared doesn't sleep nearly as much that afternoon as he did the day before. He actually feels okay enough around four that he sits up and watches the second Die Hard for a while. About halfway through Jensen gets up and cooks soup. It's chicken noodle, with the noodles mushed down to the point that he doesn't even have to put up the pretense of chewing them, and it's so good he might actually cry.

Jensen hits him with an elephant-sized dose of Nyquil with codeine afterwards, and Jared doesn't wake up again until Jensen's alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m.

"Hey," Jensen says, rolling over sleepily. "How're you doing now?"

Jared breathes in experimentally. His throat feels like it might be able to handle something quasi-solid, like, say, tacos—God, he could go for some tacos right now—and when he shifts upright in bed, his head doesn't actually feel like it's going to explode immediately. "Huh," Jared says. "Kind of better."

"'Kind of better'? As in, it's safe for me to go to work and for the kids to come back tonight? Or 'kind of better' as in, you could probably take a shower today without collapsing to the floor? Which, by the way, I really recommend that you do, because when was the last time you showered?"

Jared tries to count days and fails. "Huh. I'm not sure."

"Yeah, I know," Jensen says grimly. "I can smell your uncertainty."

"You're hilarious," Jared says, hitting his arm. "So I'll take a shower later."

"The entire world says thank you."

Jared flips him the finger, but Jensen's already out of bed and in the bathroom, so it's somewhat less effective than he would have liked. He follows Jensen down to the kitchen for breakfast after Jensen finishes getting dressed, and gnaws on a piece of wheat bread and more Gatorade while Jensen eats cereal. Tacos would have been way better.

"So I think it's probably safe for you to go to work," Jared says, somewhat reluctantly.

"I sort of guessed that," Jensen says. "Although I also like to get dressed for work and then hang out around the house. You know, for fun."

"I'm going to call you every fifteen minutes today," Jared says. "And tell you that I'm dying."

"Have fun drowning in your own mucus when I stop picking up after the second call." Jensen leans across the table and kisses Jared on the forehead.

Jared scrunches up his face. "I bet you're infected now."

"If I haven't caught it yet, I figure I'm probably safe," Jensen says. "And I mean, if we both die, I bet Chad and Sophia would keep the kids."

"South Park marathons forever!" Jared yells, fist-pumping, and Jensen laughs on his way out the door.

*

Jared spends the rest of the day discovering that the only thing worse than being deathly ill is being sort-of ill. He doesn't feel quite good enough to go back to work, he knows that, but he does feel good enough to stay awake all day, cook himself a can of Campbell's Chunky Chicken and Rice, watch eight episodes of Law & Order: SVU and over-think the entirety of his life.

Jared doesn't remember much about that first day he was sick. He was asleep for most of the day and groggy as hell for the rest, but he remembers Jensen's fingers moving across his hair, Jensen moving the blankets off him when he tried to kick them off, feverish, and Jensen pulling them back over him in the middle of the night when the fever broke and he started to shiver. He remembers the weight of Jensen's body on the bed beside him and how good it was to know that Jensen was there. That if he stopped breathing in the night, Jensen would know it.

If he'd gotten sick in L.A., how long would it have taken anyone to notice? He's never gotten sick when he's been in L.A., but that's not the point. The point is: he has no idea how long it would be. He hangs out with lots of people, sure, he's got plenty of friends, but if he didn't show up at a club or for dinner or whatever, people would probably just figure he'd blown them off, gone to a different club with different friends. No one would think anything of it until a couple weeks down the line when someone said, "Hey, what happened to Jared?" and they'd find his half-gnawed bones on the floor of his kitchen, and he knows it's bad when he's comparing himself to Bridget Jones, but it's fucking weird to realize he's been lonely, damn it. Eight years of living the life since Sandy broke up with him, and that whole time he never even realized he was lonely.

If he's honest with himself, it goes back longer than eight years. It goes back to the end of Supernatural, the moment he flew down to L.A. to propose to Sandy and never really hung out with his best friend again until he got thrown into some alternate universe where he's married to him, and it's just. It's a weird thing to think about, and ice hockey isn't distracting him nearly enough. There should be way more fighting.

*

Jensen brings the kids home a little after five, and they all clamor onto the bed with him. "Try not to get too close to my face," Jared tells them, but Josh buries his nose in Jared's neck anyway.

They eat spaghetti for dinner and it doesn't entirely hurt to swallow, which is awesome. The kids pass right out after dinner—Chad played tag with them for an hour after he picked them up from school, Jensen says. Jensen comes into the room afterwards and presses a kiss to Jared's forehead. "Hey, you good now?"

Jared is and he isn't. There's something squirming in his stomach that might build into the need to vomit. It isn't part of the flu and he doesn't know what it means, and so he says, "Good, but not a hundred percent better, you know?"

And Jensen says, "Yeah, I know." He kisses Jared's cheek and picks up a book and starts reading, and Jared's pretty sure he should be talking to Jensen about something, only he has no real idea what, and the thought of talking to Jensen is making the potential vomiting more urgent. So instead he rolls over onto his side and spends a very long time not falling asleep.

*

The next morning Jared finally really does feel better. It's a Saturday, so neither he nor Jensen has work. Jared almost wishes he did—the squirmy feeling in his stomach returns with a vengeance when Jensen blinks his eyes awake and looks at him that morning, and he wouldn't have to deal with that all day if he were at work; plus, Jared kind of likes all the hand-waving and the weather-talking—but it turns out that it's a completely beautiful day, in the low seventies and sunny, even, which is ridiculous for anywhere in January and especially for January in Vancouver, and there's no way in hell Jared can say no when Jensen tells him, "The kids want to go to the park. What do you think?"

They pack up the dog and the kids and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and head out. It's even more beautiful at the park than Katherine Wortham had made it sound on TV: brilliant winter sky but warm, and the park is full of joggers and teenagers lounging on blankets and elderly couples walking the paths and holding hands. Jensen spreads out the enormous wool blanket and sets Josh up with some blocks while Annie throws a ball for the dog. Maggie's completely down with this plan, sprinting after the ball and dropping it, drool-covered, at Annie's feet over and over; Annie gets bored with it after a while, though, and Jared takes over for her. The dog's got pretty much endless stores of energy but it's not like throwing a ball is really that strenuous—Jared could keep it up all day, and is kind of planning on it, when the wailing starts from behind him.

"Hey, Josh, come on, what's the matter?" Jensen's saying, but Josh is screaming like Jared's never heard him scream. In retrospect, Jared doesn't know that he's ever heard Josh cry for more than a couple minutes before he calmed back down and started smiling and giggling again, which Jared hadn't known to take for granted until now—but that's weird that Josh has always been so good for him, right? Most of Jared's friends don't have kids, but the ones who do have kids have little monsters, kids who scream at the slightest provocation—probably all came out of the womb screaming—and they're always yelling. Josh, though, has to be a couple years old at least, and Jared hasn't ever heard him throw a tantrum.

Jared turns to look, ball poised in the air and ready to throw again while Maggie tries to jump for it. Jensen's trying to show Josh toys and Josh just keeps wailing, won't shut up for anything until Jensen finally says, "Show me what you want, Josh, you have to show me."

Finally Josh blubbers, "Daddy!"

Jensen's face changes instantly, his eyes going huge. "Jared," he says. "Did you hear that? Josh just—"

"Daddy," Josh says insistently.

Annie says, "Josh just said a word, Papa!"

"Yeah, sweetie, I know, Josh just said his first word," Jensen says.

Jared lobs the ball away for Maggie to go fetch and kneels down on the blanket beside Josh and says, "Hey, buddy. Hey, Josh, come here," and Josh folds his face into Jared's chest and his sobs subside into hiccoughs. There's something small and fragile in Jared's chest and the only thing for it is to pat Josh's back and say, "Shh, it's okay, I'm here," rubbing little circles on his back and not letting go.

*

Hours later, Jensen's still giddy. "Josh said his first word!" he repeats for approximately the ninety-eighth time. "I just. His first word."

"And it doesn't bother you at all that his first word was 'Daddy' and not 'Papa'?" Jared asks, just to see if it'll rile him up.

"He just said that because you were too busy playing with the dog to pay attention to him," Jensen says serenely. "I'm sure 'Papa' will be next. But seriously, his first word!"

"Okay, buddy, am I going to need to get out the sedatives?"

"I'm sensing that you're not quite as excited as I am," Jensen says, "and it's kind of weirding me out. He said your name. You'd be more excited than this if he'd said 'diapey' or 'pacifier'."

"'Pacifier' would have been a really difficult first word," Jared muses. "Think of how cool that would've been!"

"I'm just saying. He said your name! You should be through the roof right now."

"I'm totally through the roof," Jared argues. Jensen doesn't seem particularly convinced, though, and there's about to be a moment of awkward, fumbling silence when Jared gets an idea. "Hey, have we got any booze? We should celebrate or something."

"We drank the last of the beer yesterday," Jensen says, frowning, "but I think there's still some tequila above the fridge."

"Awesome," Jared says. For his purposes—which is to say, getting Jensen drunk to the point that he passes out and stops talking about Josh's first word—tequila is perfect. Jared grabs the saltshaker and the tequila and Jensen procures a lime out of the produce drawer.

So the getting-Jensen-drunk part of the plan? That goes great. Jensen's sprawled all over the couch like sitting upright is too much effort, and Jared knows the feeling, because they've been going shot for shot and Jensen's not exactly a lightweight. The getting-Jensen-to-shut-up part of the plan, though? Jared's kind of an idiot for not having remembered, but alcohol doesn't shut Jensen up—it only makes him talk more, and not just about Josh's first word, although that does feature heavily for the first three shots. After that he gets going on a rant about high school drama and the administration, which consists, as far as Jared can tell, entirely of idiots. Somehow this segues into how Harrison Ford really should have retired after K19: The Widowmaker, even though it was a piece of shit movie to end on, because now he's over seventy and still trying to star in action movies, which, no.

"I'm glad we got out when we did," Jensen says.

"So we didn't subject the world to our sagging seventy-year-old bellies?" Jared says.

"Nah," Jensen says lazily. "I don't know what you're talking about. My belly isn't ever going to sag."

"You're such a fucking liar," Jared says, grabbing for Jensen's love handles. He digs his fingers in and yeah, Jensen's just as ticklish on his sides as Jared remembers him being, except there's a little more of him now: soft flesh at his sides to push his fingers against and squeeze. Jensen cries uncle about two seconds in but Jared keeps tickling him until he's curled up in a tight protective ball with Jared diving in, pressing his advantage, so he somehow ends up sprawled over Jensen, who's laughing and grinning and saying, "Stop, God, stop!" but not like he really means it. And then Jared looks down and realizes Jensen's face is about four inches away from his and Jensen's got a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," Jensen says, and kisses him. It's good with the tequila—really good, actually: the warmth from the tequila is spreading all the way through his body, and Jensen's mouth is hot and wet under his. And then Jensen says, "I want to fuck you," against Jared's lips.

Jared freezes instantly and Jensen pushes Jared off him and sits up. "What the hell, Jared?"

"Jensen, I—" Jared begins, but Jensen cuts him off immediately.

"I don't get you!" he says. "You didn't want to have sex last night, okay, you weren't feeling all the way better yet, that's fine. But all last week you kept finding ways to get out of it or trying to distract me and it's just—I don't know what I'm supposed to think. You want to hear something crazy? For a while there, I actually thought you were cheating on me."

Jared thinks of Katherine Wortham, and the idea of sex with her makes him feel like he might actually throw up. It doesn't make a damned bit of sense—she's hot as hell, he should want to do her in an instant—but he thinks of what Jensen's face would look like if he found out Jared had done that, the way it would crumple in unhappiness, and he says, "No, God, no, I'm not—I wouldn't—I mean, I wouldn't ever—"

"I know you wouldn't," Jensen says, his face softening a little as he shifts closer to Jared again. "But it's just—I don't know what's happening with you, and I don't get it, and you have to let me know what's going on, Jared, because—"

Jared looks at him and finally, finally he gets it. "Oh my God," he says wonderingly. "I've been in love with you all this time."

"Of course you have, you asshole," Jensen says, lunging across the couch and kissing him brutally. Jared kisses him back, gasping for air against Jensen's mouth. He's not entirely sure he'd be able to breathe even if they weren't kissing, because he's in love with Jensen, and when Jensen pulls back a little and says, "Are we good now?" the only thing Jared can say is, "Yeah, we're good," and let Jensen pull his jeans and his boxers off and then struggle his way out of his shirt. Jared's naked. He feels too vulnerable for a moment, but then Jensen's got his clothes off too and it's good again. Jensen rocks forward against him and catches Jared's lower lip between his teeth, just the slightest bit of a pull and then he releases it again.

"Let me fuck you," Jensen says.

Jared's still scared as shit of this, but there's a thread of something else cutting through the nervousness, something Jared finally knows is want. "Okay," he says.

Somehow he doesn't have to tell Jensen to take it slow. Jensen produces a condom and lube from his jeans pocket—Jared raises an eyebrow and says, "Were you planning on having sex in front of the kids?" and Jensen replies, "Oh God, never say that again, that's disgusting," and Jared just cackles—but he stops cackling when Jensen bends him over the back of the couch and presses a slick finger into him. It's a little weird but not entirely bad, and it gets better when Jensen gets his other hand slick with lube and grips Jared's dick, pulling a couple times and saying, "Hey, I've got you." Jared feels too full when Jensen pulls his forefinger out and slides another finger in along with it, but then Jensen curls his fingers in a way that makes Jared's legs shake and his head explode.

"That's your prostate," Jensen says, laughing. "I'm pretty sure you've met before. Like, from time to time."

"Less talking, more finger-fucking," Jared pants, spreading his legs wider and bracing hard against the couch.

"Fuckin' pushy." Jared can hear the grin in his voice as he works a third finger in. Jared doesn't even try to resist, because Jensen's stroking his prostate with purpose now, and God, this is better than pretty much any awesome thing ever, maybe even better than blowjobs. Definitely better than blowjobs when Jensen starts timing it so he jerks Jared's dick and hits his prostate at the same time—Jared isn't even sure he's going to be alive to make the comparison with blowjobs after Jensen's done with him. It's like he knows exactly what to do to make Jared crazy and somehow it makes it through Jared's brain that they've been together for ten years in this world, ten fucking years—Jensen's got to know everything there is to know about him, and that's got to make sex completely awesome, and Jared is in love with him. Jared is honest-to-God in love with Jensen Ackles, and Jensen's fingers are up his ass, and Jared wants all of it, wants Jensen to fuck him hard over the couch. It's by far the gayest thought he's ever had, and he doesn't even care.

"Come on," he pants, "fucking do it already," and Jensen presses his teeth to Jared's shoulder in a bite that turns into a kiss and says, "Okay," slides his fingers out and edges his dick in.

It's supposed to hurt, Jared thinks, but mostly what he feels is pressure: his muscles giving as he takes Jensen's dick. Jensen pushes in slowly until his balls hit against Jared's ass and then he starts to move, shallow rocking then fucking into Jared in earnest, pulling his dick out and slamming it back in, and Jared's pretty sure he's saying something but he doesn't have any idea what it is, long strings of sounds that can't possibly be words. Jared's palms are sweaty, sliding against the leather of the couch. Somehow he gets enough command over his muscles to start fucking back into Jensen, make him pant and curse. Jensen's got one hand bracing on the couch, the other hand on Jared's stomach, pulling him in closer. When Jensen shifts that hand lower to touch Jared's balls he's done for: Jared shoots all over the back of the couch, come brilliant against the dark leather.

Jared's pretty sure he's supposed to feel embarrassed about how quickly he just came, but then he clenches his ass around Jensen's dick and Jensen says, "Fuck," and comes too, so he doesn't worry about it too much. Jensen leans against his back for a while afterwards, panting.

"I think I'm just going to go to sleep here," he says. "You don't mind, do you?"

Jared bends all the way over the couch so that the blood rushes to his head and Jensen's dick pulls part of the way out. "Do you think I can flip you all the way over my back?" he says.

"Probably," Jensen says. "I don't even care. Go for it."

Jared slides out from under him, his ass tingeing a little as Jensen's dick slides all the way out. It's a good hurt, though, because Jensen just fucked him and he liked it, completely fucking loved it, and he loves Jensen—his brain still can't quite get past that point. He's in love with Jensen, who's leaning on one arm against the back of the couch like he might fall over if he lets go and smiling sleepily at him.

"You tired or something?" Jared says. He can't seem to stop grinning.

"Mmm," Jensen says, tucking against Jared's chest. "Bedtime."

"You want me to carry you into the bedroom?" Jared asks.

"Mmm," Jensen replies. "Sounds good." He pulls the condom off and hands it to Jared.

"Ugh, seriously?" Jared says, holding it away from him.

"Tired," Jensen explains.

Jared sighs heavily, but ties the condom off and tosses it in the trashcan, then catches Jensen around the waist and gets Jensen's arm over his shoulders for support. "You realize that will totally make you the wife in this relationship. Like, forever."

"Says the guy who just took it up the ass," Jensen says.

"I'm not taking it up the ass again for weeks," Jared says gleefully, steering Jensen down the hall and into the bedroom. "You're the wife. That's all you."

"Whatever you say." Jensen curls blissfully up into a ball against the pillows. Jared works the comforter out from under him and spoons against his back. Jensen burrows against him and tangles his fingers with Jared's, then sighs sleepily.

Out of the blue Jensen mumbles, "It's not because of the getting-old thing."

Jared's halfway asleep already, so it takes him a moment even to work out what Jensen said. "What isn't because of the getting-old thing?"

"That's not why I'm glad we got out of L.A.," Jensen says. "It's because this is better."

He doesn't even have to say what he means. Jared squeezes Jensen's hand and shifts even closer against him. "Yeah," he whispers into Jensen's neck. "I know it is."

*

In the morning it occurs to Jared that they had sex in the family room, and the kids could have walked in at any moment, and also that they forgot to clean Jared's come off the couch.

"Dude, relax," Jensen says, grabbing his arm. "The kids sleep like the dead, and you know Windex will get the dried come off."

Jared stares at him. "Seriously?"

"That's like the ninety-eighth time you've shot on that couch," Jensen says. "It'll be fine."

"Huh," Jared says.

It's not until Jensen goes in the bathroom and starts brushing his teeth that Jared realizes Jensen fucked him up the ass last night and he isn't freaking out about it. He isn't even close to freaking out about it. He's sore in places he didn't even know existed until last night, and the only thing he's freaked out about is the fact that the kids might have walked in on them.

He goes into the bathroom. "Hey, Jensen?"

Jensen looks up from wiping his face on a hand towel. "Yeah?"

"I love you," Jared says experimentally.

"God, you're such a sap," Jensen says, not even trying to hide his grin: it makes his laugh lines even more pronounced than ever, and Jared can't help but step forward and kiss him good morning. "Ugh, morning breath," Jensen protests, but he doesn't move away.

Jared's grinning for the rest of the day, and after that it only gets better. Jared can see waves of tension lifting from Jensen's shoulders every time they fuck, which is pretty much all the time. It's awesome. Jensen's right: the kids really do sleep through everything, including that time Jensen deep-throats him and he comes so hard he actually screams.

The first time Jared fucks Jensen, it's amazing. Jensen's back is arching under him and the pudge on his sides is perfect to dig his fingers into and squeeze while Jared fucks into him. The whole thing is almost as perfect as the feeling of Jensen's dick in his ass and Jared nearly falls off the bed thinking it, because Chad was right: he really is the bottom.

"You say that like you're so surprised," Jensen says sleepily.

"I hate you," Jared tells him. "Like, a lot." But Jensen's already snoring at his side.

Jared likes work better by the day too; that's the crazy thing. While filming one morning he's in the middle of talking about a warm front moving through, and he says, "There's also a distinct chance of CLOUDZILLA ATTACK," and roars, and no one really bats an eye.

"I'm just glad we're not filming live right now," Sally the producer says, with a long-suffering sigh.

Chad and Sophia come over for dinner one night. Sophia helps Jensen cook while Jared and Chad play with the kids. "So how's your wife?" Chad says.

"How's yours?" Jared shoots right back, concentrating very hard on not thinking about how Chad was right about the sex.

Chad sighs, placing one building block on top of another, while Josh promptly knocks them down. "She thinks we should have kids."

"Yeah?" Jared finishes sharpening Annie's colored pencils and hands them back to her. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," Chad says. "I mean, we're still pretty young."

"Yeah, but I think you'd be pretty good with kids," Jared says.

Josh knocks over an extra-high tower of blocks while Chad's distracted. "Really?"

"Yeah," Jared says, kind of astonished to realize it's true.

Jared proves his chocolate milk-making skills to Annie ("Daddy's is still better," she tells him, but he's pretty sure she's got her doubts) and Josh learns three new words ('want,' 'no' and finally 'Papa,' and the look on Jensen's face the first time Josh says it makes Jared fall in love with him all over again), and finally Jared wakes up one morning in the middle of January to see Vancouver covered in snow, the trees and the grown crystalline white. It's a Saturday, and Jensen's still snoring softly, so Jared slides out of bed, careful not to wake him. He gets the kids suited up for snow, making sure they know to stay quiet.

The kids are gawking in the front yard, and Jared wonders if they've ever seen snow before. Probably not as much as this, anyway, not in Vancouver—they've got a good six inches to work with here. Jared teaches them how to make snowballs and lob them at each other. The snow's just right for snowballs and even better for snow forts, and Maggie's running around like a wild thing in the snow, barking and trying to hump the kids' legs because apparently snow makes her think she's a boy. Jared spends a while disentangling her from Josh's back, and then Annie makes a snow angel and Jared helps Josh make his own—it looks a little more like a snow crater than a snow angel by the time they're done, but nobody's going to tell Josh that. Somebody starts a game of tag, which somehow ends with them all in a tiny dog pile with Maggie trying to hump whoever's leg is nearest, which is Jared's.

Jared's doing his best to ignore the dog while attempting to stuff snow down Annie's jacket, and Annie is screeching and giggling. Jared is flat on his back on the ground, holding her up in the air, and finally she looks at him with wonder and whispers, "I knew you'd come back."

"Annie," Jared says, pulling her tight against his chest and swallowing down the lump in his throat.

When she finally releases him and Jared pulls Josh up and pulls the dog off his leg, Jensen's standing on the porch in his bathrobe, hair mussed and with a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. "There'd better be more where that came from, is all I'm saying," Jared tells him.

Jensen grins and points inside the house. "If you give me another fifteen minutes," he says, "there will also be pancakes."

"Pancakes?" Annie yells, and they're all in the house again, depositing dripping mittens and boots by the door.

The lump doesn't really leave Jared's throat, though, not even during breakfast or afterwards. He's doing his best not to think about it, but even as they're watching cartoons in the family room with the fire actually lit, even as they're back outside having a snowball fight (Jared and Josh totally win, regardless of what Jensen and Annie claim) and making hot chocolate afterwards, Jared can't quite forget what he knows: it's over. Whatever this is, this glimpse of a perfect life is over.

That night as they're getting ready for bed, Jared looks at Jensen from the chair across the room and says, "Hey, listen. I'm going to say something kind of weird, but I need you to hear me out, okay?"

"You're not going to say you decided you actually like chicks after all and you want me to get gender reassignment surgery, are you?" Jensen says warily.

"No. Although actually . . . " He cuts off, laughing, at Jensen's murderous look. "Nothing like that, it's just—I want you to remember me, okay? Exactly as I am, no matter what happens tomorrow or whenever."

Jensen raises an eyebrow. "So you're running out on me with another man?"

"I wouldn't," Jared says. "You know I wouldn't."

"Yeah, I know." Jensen smiles at him. "Jared, what's this about?"

"Just promise me you'll remember me," Jared says earnestly. "You have to."

"Okay, you weirdo, I promise. Now come to bed."

For the first time in weeks, Jared doesn't want to do it. He doesn't want this to be over. He can't think of any reason to tell Jensen no, though, and he doesn't want to be any weirder than he already has been. He takes off his clothes and curls around Jensen, arm wrapped around his chest, and tries to stay awake for as long as he can.

*

When he wakes up, Jared's naked and sticky with oil. Someone's pressed up against him and the room reeks of cloying perfume. He opens an eye carefully and realizes he was wrong. It's not one someone in bed with him, it's two, one on either side of him: a pair of blonde strippers he vaguely remembers from that club with Chad on New Year's, so long ago it feels like another lifetime. It was another lifetime. Carefully Jared tries to free himself from the middle of the bed, but he doesn't manage to get out without waking up the strippers.

"Hey," says the one on the left. Jared has no earthly idea what time it is. "That was amazing last night. You want to go another round?"

"Yeah, definitely," says the one on the right, rubbing Jared's nipple idly. "I think that would be fantastic."

Maybe at some other point in his life this would have seemed like a good idea. Spending the day in bed with two hot blondes? Yeah, that should sound like a great idea. Now, though, he doesn't even have to think about it to know that's exactly not what's going to happen. "Um, sorry, I have things to do today," Jared says quickly. "Meetings, things, you know. I really don't think I'm going to be able to stick around for that."

"What do you mean?" says the one stroking his chest, putting on a pouty face. She's got brilliant red lipstick smudged all over her mouth. Instead of looking sexy, it reminds Jared of Annie just after she ate a cherry popsicle, and his chest pangs so hard it actually hurts.

"I mean, you're going to have to leave," he says. "Like, right now." He's being an asshole, it's obvious from the women's faces, and he doesn't even care. He doesn't even wait for them to clear the bed before he's digging for his jeans, coming up triumphant with his cell phone and punching in speed dial for his personal assistant.

"Marie?" Jared yells into the phone. "Hey, Marie!"

"Jesus, what?" she grumbles. "Jared, you realize it's nine a.m on New Year's Day, right? And that the only reason I answered my phone right now is because there was a distinct possibility you might have been dead and someone was using your phone to let me know?" She pauses. "You're not dead, are you?"

"No," Jared says, turning his back to the strippers. "No, I'm not dead. Listen, I need a favor."

"A favor," she says slowly. "You better be paying me really well for this one."

"I'll pay you so well you won't even know what to do with yourself," Jared tells her. "Just, please, Marie, do this for me."

She sighs. "Fine. I don't know why, but fine. What do you want?"

"I need you to find out where Jensen Ackles is right this second—"

"He's on Broadway, come on," she interrupts.

"—and I need you to find the fastest way to get me to wherever he's going to be when I get there," Jared finishes.

She's silent for a moment. "As in, you want me to get you on a plane to New York on New Year's Day and then get you to exactly wherever the hell Jensen Ackles is," she says.

"Yup, you got it."

"You're insane," Marie tells him. "You're actually clinically insane. Maybe not as insane as that one time Angelina Jolie wanted her personal assistant to acquire her an electric chair, but still pretty damned insane."

"Thanks, Marie," Jared says. "I owe you big time."

"Damn right, you do," she says as he hangs up on her.

"You're kind of a prick, you know," one of the strippers says, giving him the finger as she and the other stripper collect their purses and slam the door behind them.

"Have a nice life!" Jared says cheerfully. His pulse is going about fifteen times faster than it should. He's back in his old life, back in L.A. with a hangover the size of Texas, but it doesn't matter. He's going to fly to New York and he's going to find Jensen and he's going to find a way to fix everything he's fucked up in the past ten years. He's got a whole bottle's worth of massage oil all over him mixed with dried come, though; he really fucking needs a shower.

He's in and out in less than five minutes—he doesn't want to miss Marie's call—and he's even all the way packed before his doorbell rings, which is weird, because no way would Marie be driving in all the way from Pasadena just for this. He peers through the eyehole and sees Chad staring back at him. He'd forgotten, but Chad has a beard. It looks like something small and furry died on his face.

"What are you doing awake right now?" Jared says, letting him in.

"Get your ass out here, fucker!" Chad says, walking into the room. "You already missed twelve hours of the New Year's Day party, bitch!"

"I don't think I'm going to—"

Chad stares at him. "You're not gonna pussy out on me, are you? Seriously?"

Jared's cell phone buzzes. He makes a mad dive for it. "Marie? Yeah?"

"I got you on the 12:00 flight out into Newark," Marie says. "It's out of LAX, and you have no idea how fucking much you owe me."

"I owe you my life," Jared says, ignoring Chad's muttering in the background. "And where is he?"

"In his bed asleep like any normal person, probably," Marie says. "He's in SoHo. You got a pen?"

Jared digs for one and takes down the address. He's about to ask for Jensen's cell phone number when he remembers he's already got it in his phone. "Have I mentioned that you're amazing?" he says.

"Have I mentioned how very much you owe me?"

"Have a wonderful New Year's," Jared says cheerily, hanging up the phone.

"Dude, since when are you gay?" Chad says. "'Have a wonderful New Year's'?"

Jared pretty much dies of laughter. He can't even help it. He grabs his duffel bag off the floor and his keys off the counter and says, "I'll see you around, man. Have a good day."

"What the hell? You're coming to the club with me, right?"

"No," Jared says. "Not so much. Lock the door when you leave, okay?"

"What the hell?" Chad repeats.

"Oh and hey, Chad? You'd probably make a really good dad."

Chad looks kind of like a blowfish when he's reduced to not talking. Jared wishes a little bit that he could catch it on his cell phone and post it to YouTube, but he really doesn't have enough time.

Jared spends an hour sitting in traffic on the way to LAX, and then another hour standing in security, another waiting at the gate, five on the plane, one and a half in a cab from the airport, and by the time he gets out in SoHo, it's a little after 10:30 at night.

Snow's been coming down ever since he landed in New York, huge fat flakes turning the city white. There are a few cars on the streets, but it's New Year's Day; probably everyone's still inside, not even thinking about leaving their apartments. Jensen's probably home. The only thing on Jared's mind this whole day has been to get to Jensen as soon as possible, but now that he's here he needs a minute, so he just starts walking, his breath puffing white in front of his face.

After a few minutes he ends up on Christopher Street, full of bars and brownstones and the faint strains of showtunes. It's still pretty empty outside, but a group of four guys stumbles out of one of the bars, laughing and leaning against each other. "Shall we head to Pommes Frites?" one of the guys asks, his lisp carrying all the way down the block.

"Yeah, sure," another of the guys says. "I could go for some fries."

Jared stares in their direction, because he knows that voice and then he realizes: It's Jensen. Jared is frozen in place; he can't even get his vocal chords to work, because that's Jensen—not quite as soft in the face as the Jensen Jared knew until this morning, but it's still him, definitely him, and finally Jared gets himself together enough to yell, "Jensen!"

Jensen turns in his direction and squints. Then his whole face lights up. "Jared!" he says, walking toward him. "What are you—"

Jared jogs up to Jensen, grabs him by the shoulders and kisses him. Jared's lips are cold from being outside for however long it's been, but Jensen's are warm and pressing back against his and Jensen's gripping Jared by the arms.

"Um," Jensen says. "Hi to you, too. What was—"

"I'm so sorry," Jared says. "God, Jensen, I'm so sorry, I've been a fucking idiot for ten years, man, ten years and why didn't you say anything, and—"

He knows he's babbling but he doesn't seem able to stop, so it's a good thing that Jensen says, "Hey, Jared. Hold on a second for me and breathe, okay?"

Jared breathes. It's a little more difficult than he remembers it being.

Jensen turns to the other three guys, who are staring at him amusedly. "Um. Maybe I'll catch you later?"

"I sincerely hope not," the guy with the lisp says, waggling his eyebrows. "You have a good night, now."

Jensen flips him the finger and the three guys walk away, laughing. Then he turns back to Jared. "You still breathing?"

Jared nods. Taking deep breaths and then releasing them, that's the key.

"Good," Jensen says. "That's good. Now talk again, but with little words. What's going on with you?"

"I just." Jared swallows. "There was this glimpse, okay? We were married and we lived in Vancouver and we had these two kids named Annie and Josh and a dog named Maggie and you were a high school drama teacher and I was a weatherman—"

"You know you need a degree to do that, right?" Jensen says. "To be a weatherman?"

Jared considers for a second, but then he's off and running again. "I don't know, maybe I had one, but it doesn't matter, because we had these kids, and we lived in my old house in Vancouver, the one I bought when the show was going, and I didn't ask Sandy to marry me, I came back and got with you instead and—"

"You might want to breathe again," Jensen says seriously. "Lack of oxygen can really damage your brain."

Carefully, Jared takes a deep breath and then exhales. "So what do you think?" he says.

Jensen stares. "Was there a question in there somewhere?"

"Oh," Jared says. "Maybe not. I'm an idiot and I just realized I'm in love with you and do you want to get married and have kids?"

Jensen bursts out laughing.

"I'm totally serious!" Jared says, affronted. "Do I at all look like I'm not serious?"

"The terrifying thing is, no, you don't," Jensen says, wheezing. "I'm pretty sure you actually mean it."

"I tell you I'm in love with you and you think I'm crazy," Jared says.

"Jared," Jensen says. "Have you even thought about what this looks like? I haven't seen you in ten fucking years, man, and you show up in New York and tell me you're in love with me?"

"Why'd you call me yesterday, Jensen?" Jared asks.

"Because I wanted to say congrats for getting the Golden Globe nomination!"

Jared looks at his face carefully. "That's it? That was the only reason? You just said it yourself, man, it's been ten years since we last talked."

"Yeah," Jensen says. "Really, that was the only reason. I just saw your name on the list and wanted to say, you know. Good job."

"And you don't ever think about what would have happened if we hadn't drifted after the show ended, if I hadn't been a total fucking idiot?"

Jared can't quite read Jensen's face. "What's your point?" he asks.

"I mean, I think there could be something here," Jared says, touching Jensen's arm. Jensen doesn't pull away from him. "With you and me, I mean. I think there could be something really awesome, and I don't know about you, man, but I want to find out what that could be."

"You know I could have a wife," Jensen says seriously. "Or a girlfriend."

"You were out with three of the gayest guys I've ever seen on a street with rainbow flags on half the windows," Jared points out. "I kind of doubt it."

"Damn," Jensen says, mouth down-turned a little at the edges. "Guess you caught me."

"No boyfriend, either?" Jared asks, stepping closer into Jensen's space. Jensen still doesn't back away.

Jensen shakes his head. "Not right now, no."

Jared moves his hands onto Jensen's shoulders. "So what do you think, then?"

"About what?" Jensen asks. He's staring at Jared's mouth.

"You and me," Jared says. His pulse is going about eighty times as fast as it should. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," Jensen says. There's a bit of a smile on his face as he says it. "I mean, I haven't seen you in ten years, dude. You really want to jump right into—whatever this is?"

"That's not a no, though, is it?" Jared says, seizing on the loophole.

"I'll give you a chance, anyway," Jensen says. "Probably because I'm as fucking crazy as you are."

"That means I can kiss you, though, right?" Jared says.

Jensen looks like he's considering for a moment, then he grins. "Why the fuck not," he says, and pulls Jared in, his tongue moving against Jared's as the snow falls around them and his hands on Jared's face and the only thing Jared can think is: finally, finally, yes.